


Where the Edge Begins

by fairytaleideals



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Soulmates, Telepathic Bond, and Kurt/other, brief Sebastian and Seblaine eventually, idk it's hard to define, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytaleideals/pseuds/fairytaleideals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On opposite coasts of the country, Kurt and Blaine are connected by a telepathic bond that allows them to communicate and see what each other sees despite never having met. Based on the movie In Your Eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I actually wasn't really planning on writing anything for a while, but I watched this movie the other day and it kind of made me. So yeah, as you can see based on the description, this is based on the movie In Your Eyes, which is a great movie with some great actors. A couple of quick things to note: 1) I don't think the bond will ever be explained. They don't explain it in the movie and I think it worked fine. So, if you need an explanation, well... Soulmate magic! 2) If you have seen the movie, I will be staying somewhat close to the plot of the movie, but not completely. Make of that what you will.

There is something to be said about being alone. Even the most social of butterflies needs time alone, to relax and just be by themselves. Nothing but calm and quiet, little moments where you are acutely aware of the sound of the fan hanging from the ceiling or maybe you figure out solutions to all the problems in your life or you make plans for the future.

Anyone who puts up a front in public, anyone who fakes strength or a brave face or a separate identity than who they truly are to stay safe, can let down their guard within the safety of their bedroom walls.

And the thing is, it's not that Kurt doesn't know what that feels like. He has his moments when he is alone – he _knows_ he is alone – and yet at the same time, he isn't and he's sure of it. For as long as he can remember, there has been something (someone?) in the back of his mind, always there even when nobody else is around.

The one time he had said something to Rachel about it, she had gotten a look of confusion and concern on her face. She had then gone on to explain that she had also had some experience with stalkers, and a few nights later proceeded to stake out outside of his house. All through the night, she had given him updates that all amounted to that same thing: there was no evidence of someone creeping around out there. Not that he had expected there to be, anyways. He didn't think that it was a stalker, though apparently that had been how it had come across to her ears (though he wasn't sure whether to blame her or himself for her misconception, given how sometimes she just heard what she wanted to hear). He wan't sure how else to explain it to her.

Kurt had thought plenty about it (in those quiet moments when by all accounts he should have been alone). It didn't feel like he was being watched, though he wasn't sure what _did_ feel like. The closest thing he had come up with to what it felt like was being haunted, but that didn't really ring true either. All he knew was that he had never truly felt all alone, but whatever it was that was constantly in his presence didn't feel menacing. It wasn't a threat, whatever it was. Maybe more of a friend.

He first started noticing it after his mother died. Not immediately after, because obviously his mind had plenty of other things to be focusing on, but in quiet moments when he was curled up against his father's side with no words exchanged between them, he was sure there was someone else there.

As weeks went by and the absence of his mom was still like a gaping wound in his side that no child had any idea how to fix, sometimes he would feel emotions that he knew weren't his own. Curled up in a ball holding a pillow sprayed with her perfume against his body as if for dear life, he would feel a shock of happiness and excitement run through him, as if he was running free and happy on a playground or something. He was almost sure that he could hear laughter in his head, laughter that wasn't his own but still sounded like a young boy's.

As he got older, there were more and more moments where he felt like the connection between him and his – what? Imaginary friend? Ghost? His whatever – was a whole lot stronger. There were feelings and sounds and sights that he couldn't quite explain.

Like when he had been over at Mercedes' house one night having a sleepover with her and Rachel, and all of a sudden he had been overcomes with a nervous feeling, almost like he was about to have a panic attack. He had excused himself, stepping outside and holding himself until it subsided.

Another one that stuck out to him was when he was sixteen, sitting in the middle of a very boring history lecture on one of the last few days of school, he had a very vivid image of the ocean at sunrise. It almost felt like he was really at the beach, and if he focused hard enough he could have sworn he felt the sea breeze against his skin, could hear the crash of the waves in his ears. But just as suddenly as the image appeared, it was gone. He tried to get it back, replaying the image in his head, but by then it was just a misplaced memory. That one in particular had struck him, because tat the time he had never actually seen the ocean in person, but about two years later when he had a few friends from glee club took a trip together to Myrtle Beach, it felt like a flashback instead of a new experience.

He doesn't tell anyone about it, not anyone since Rachel in high school. He knows that there's no good way to explain it, especially since he himself has no idea what it is. He doesn't believe in heaven but maybe he believes in reincarnation and if it is real, then maybe that is what this is? Are these moments when he feels like he's looking out of someone else's eyes actually memories from a paste life or something? The more he thinks about it, the more he's unsure, and some days he feels like maybe he's just making it all up in his head, or maybe there's something wrong with him. Until he has some sort of answers or he knows that he's not crazy, he isn't going to say anything, even if that means never saying anything to anyone about it.

And it's easy, most of the time. Occasionally he'll have a moment where he feels plunged into this other entity's life, something intense enough happening that he shows it outwardly, but it's relatively easy to make up a viable enough excuse that no one really questions him too much.

He's happy with the way things are, really. Sometimes he might start to hear a voice coming from whatever other side this is, but a lot of the time when it happens it is easy enough to simply block it out. Hell, from time to time the little moments of secondhand excitement are what gets him through long days.

So, things are good. There have been a few hiccups along the way, sure, but he would pay money to meet someone whose life worked out exactly as they wanted it to precisely. He isn't on Broadway and his name isn't written in lights anywhere, but that's alright. He has a good job with a major fashion designer that is sometimes overly demanding but always rewarding. He lives in New York City in an apartment that he never would have dared to dream of until he was actually living in it. He had told himself once that he wanted to be married by thirty, but here he was, twenty-five and happily married. His husband was a bit older, a fresh new doctor who was making a point of equipping Kurt with all the finer things in life.

He is comfortable, no, happy. He is happy. He is significantly ahead of his life plan, the way he sees it, and so there’s no reason to complain. And if he stays busy, usually he doesn't take all too much notice of anything he can't explain.

* * *

On the other side of the country, Blaine Anderson isn't really sure how his life got to be how it is now.

If you had asked him ten years ago where he wanted to be by now, he would have told you that he was going to go to New York. For a long time, that had felt like a foregone conclusion.

And yet, here he is, living in Los Angeles where everyone is fake and there is no such thing as seasons.

Okay, it's not all bad, and he really shouldn't be complaining. He's living with Cooper, meaning that he gets to spend more time with his brother than he has in a long time, and rebuilding that bond has been good. And really, for an aspiring actor, he knows that there are a whole lot worse places that he could be.

So no, it isn't really ideal and it is nowhere near where he had wanted to be by now, but things could definitely be worse. He contents himself with where he is, picking up any small role wherever he can (no matter how embarrassing) and taking advantage of the ability to go to the beach in the middle of the winter but still never get too hot in the summer.

Still, though, he can feel the pull to get back to what he had originally planned, that pull sometimes feeling like something more literal than anything else.

He has always been a dreamer. The way Cooper put it was that he was only ever about half there, wherever he was. Back in school, there were certainly a few times that he had gotten asked a question then got in trouble for not knowing the answer, much less the question, due to his daydreaming. It was a blessing that he was a pretty smart guy and a good student most of the time, otherwise his life would've been a lot harder.

It just feels so real sometimes. One second he would be there in his room, everything normal, when all of a sudden he would blink and upon opening his eyes it was like he was in New York, making his way down a crowded sidewalk. He would find himself gazing out windows of tall buildings down at the people below, or leaning up against the wall of a subway cart with people packed in around him like sardines. He isn't quite sure how he could have such lifelike images in his head of somewhere that he has never been, but he’s willing to accept it because of how he has always had an active imagination.

There were other things he had seen, though, that he can't as easily explain. One time he was in the middle of washing dishes when his hands stopped holding a plate and sponge and instead were holding a pencil and a sketchbook, and he could feel a phantom frustration. He hadn't been able to make out what exactly was on the page, but whatever it was, he is fairly certain that it wasn't anything he had ever drawn, especially considering 1) he is left-handed and the pencil is in his right hand in the vision, and 2) he isn't much of an artist and he has never pretended to be, either.

Overall, though, he doesn't really think too much of it. Sure, sometimes he will feel things that aren't there or maybe he will get overcome with some emotion he has no reason to feel, but who doesn't, right? It doesn't seem like something he should be too concerned about, anyways.

What it does seem like is a person. That is all he could say with any amount of certainty. When he was a kid, he had at times attributed these images and feelings to being an imaginary friend. Now that he is older he is fairly certain that it isn't something he’s consciously making up, half the time thinking that it is a part of his subconscious close to wherever dreams come from, the other half thinking that maybe it is something else entirely.

For the most part, he is happy to leave it at that. Nothing good ever comes from questioning a good thing, right? And he is fairly certain that this is a good thing, whatever it is. Sure, sometimes it weighs on him and even if he is having a good day there is a quiet pool of dread in his stomach, but those times are rare and the good days outweigh the bad by far. And that is good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that! PS, sorry about any tense problems. I got mixed up a lot but I promise I will be more consistent in the future. You're welcome to point out any glaring mistakes!


	2. Chapter Two

By now, Kurt is pretty used to getting dressed up and going out to fancy dinner parties. At first it had all been very dazzling and exciting, but now it is just another part of his life. Not that it isn't still exciting, but the charm of the word "gala" starts to wane after a bit when they become a regular thing. Still, though, he relishes the opportunity to get dressed up and have some fun schmoozing with rich men and women. It's something that he's pretty good at, charming these older people who have all the power to make or break his husband's career.

He looks up, glancing around the room to find the man in question. He smiles softly to himself as he sees him, excusing himself from his current conversation to go over and stand beside him. "Hi, Lucas," he says softly as he leans up and kisses him on the cheek.

"Hey, beautiful," his husband says back, smiling at him and wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him in closer. He quickly introduces him to the older couple that he was chatting with before Kurt came over, continuing the conversation.

Kurt doesn't add a whole lot to the conversation, laughing and smiling in the right places. Leaned slightly into Lucas's side, it's a nice break from having to be on top of his charming game.

***

If there's anything that Blaine loves most in the world, it's being on stage. His brother has always been more into being on screen, and sure, Blaine obviously wouldn't turn down any opportunity for that (hasn't, in fact; in the past he has gotten a couple of small roles in commercials and things which inevitably got cut until all there was was the back of his head for about a quarter of a second), but his heart is more in it when he is actually standing on a stage.

There's something about the audience, he thinks, or at least the promise of an audience when he's rehearsing and there is no audience to speak of. An audience gives feedback and it's immediate and it gives him energy that standing in front of a camera just doesn't. He likes being watched.

All of this to say, Blaine will always be a part of a play when he can, even if it is a fantastic shit show where essentially no one has any idea what is going on at any given time.

***

Kurt smiles as he picks up his wine glass, laughing politely at one of the doctors at Lucas's practice's story, all of them having sat down to enjoy their dinner together. Something about the story the other man is telling reminds Lucas of something that had happened in their apartment the week before, and he turns to Kurt to urge him to tell the story.

"He's a lot better at telling it than I am," Lucas tells the table at large, reaching over and rubbing Kurt's back just below his shoulder blades.

Kurt chuckles softly and brushes off his words before starting to tell the story. He smiles brightly as he looks around the table, enjoying the feeling of having all of their eyes on him.

***

The fact that no one has a clue what they're doing is amplified when they spend longer than usual there. They tend to get together earlier in the day, but when the rehearsal space is available later in the day, they figure there's no harm in seizing the moment and trying to get more work in.

Except, of course, when there is harm in it.

Amidst the chaos of the actors trying to figure out what they should be doing, there are also the crew putting together the set and figuring out lighting, which is arguably more chaotic and disorienting than the actors trying to make sense of a horrible script (Blaine's theory was that the playwright had subscribed to only the first half of Hemingway's famous "write drunk, edit sober"). The end result is that there is almost always several people trying to occupy the same space with only half an idea of where everyone else is in relation to them.

So Blaine isn't really sure whether he should be assigning blame or taking it when out of seemingly nowhere he takes a ladder to the face.

All he knows for sure is that he gets about a half a second's worth of warning from the leading lady who sees the pair of people carrying the ladder starting to swing around but doesn't have time to articulate proper words of caution.

But there's no time for him to process what she's saying, much less do anything to get himself out of harm's way, and the impact sends him falling to the floor.

***

Kurt is in the middle of a sentence when it hits him. And "it" is the only word he can use here, because by all accounts, _nothing_ hit him. There is no reason that anything should have happened to him, and yet.

The air is knocked out of him and he falls out of his chair by what feels like something slamming into him, just barely staying on his feet and clutching the side of his head afterwards. His vision is hazy for a moment afterwards and he could swear he sees somewhere entirely different from where he is in front on him. He blinks a couple of times and looks around in confusion for a moment and realizes that everyone else is staring at him in bewilderment. Whatever just happened, it must have been all in his head, he realizes, the thought sending a chill down his back.

Lucas stands up and puts a hand on his arm. "Are you okay?" he asks softly into his ear.

Kurt doesn't say anything for a moment, part of him still feeling like he isn't really where he is. He looks back at the table where he still has a few of the people's attention but the rest of the table appear to be trying to move on, tentatively starting up conversation again. He looks back at Lucas, whose face is a mixture of concern and annoyance. "Yeah..." he answers finally. "Yeah, I'm okay."

He nods, seeming to be satisfied with that answer. "You should go home, lay down," he says. "Go call yourself a cab."

Kurt nods slightly and leans up to kiss his cheek before walking away. He stops in the bathroom on the way, standing in front of the mirror and inspecting his reflection. He leans in closer to the glass, tilting his head at different angles, sure that if he looks a bit harder he'll see evidence of something hitting him. But no, there's nothing there. No redness or swelling or black and blue marks forming. Just his normal pale complexion, that's it.

He sighs and turns the sink on, leaning down and splashing water on his face in hopes that it will snap him out of it. He looks himself in the mirror before turning and walking out, resigning himself to the fact that there really wasn't anything more to it, just some weird hallucination.

***

Blaine sits on the floor for a bit longer, a couple of the girls fussing over him. Tina, a nice girl who was part of the crew and apparently was the one responsible for his intimate encounter with the equipment, was leaned over him, gently touching the forming bruise.

"Are you okay?" she asks him, frowning down at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replies with a soft laugh, giving her a smile to reassure her. It hurt and he's sure that he's going to have a killer bruise on the side of his head to show for it, but he doesn't want her to feel too bad about it.

"Are you sure?" she asks. She looks up when someone else comes over, offering up an ice pack. Blaine is about to take it when she grabs it instead, holding it up to his head.

Blaine gives her a small smile, nodding. "Yeah, completely sure."

No matter how many times he reassures her that he is entirely okay and _really, it doesn't even actually hurt anymore, I promise,_ she still insists on bringing him home and staying there with him for a while, citing that he might have a concussion and so shouldn't be left alone. He doesn't argue with her, letting her take him back to his apartment. Tina seems a bit disappointed when they get there and find that Cooper is sitting on the couch and can clearly take care of Blaine should anything be wrong with him. She lingers for a bit longer before she departs, leaving the two brothers sitting side by side on the couch.

"Can't stay out of trouble, can you, tiger?" Cooper teases him.

"This wasn't my fault at all," he protests, shaking his head.

"Sure, sure," he says with a soft laugh. He is quiet for a moment, looking up at the TV that is still playing some random reality show before turning back to Blaine, clearly unable to help himself. "That girl. She knows that you don't, you know, play for that team, right?"

Blaine laughs and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, she does."

"You should maybe remind her, in no uncertain terms," he says, chuckling. "Because she wants a piece of that. So, I mean, if you were ever interested in experimenting, you've probably got a candidate right there."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replies, shaking his head.

Cooper just laughs softly, wrapping an arm around Blaine's shoulders and pulling him in closer. "Don't you worry, you could probably get just about any girl you want. You wanna know how I know?"

"No," he answers with a laugh, shaking his head because he knows exactly where this is going.

"Exactly. I know because _I_ can get any girl I want, and you're almost as attractive as me," he teases, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

"Thanks for the encouragement," Blaine said, shaking his head.

"Any time, baby brother," he says with a grin.

***

Kurt sits alone on the couch when he gets home, the living room entirely dark except for a small lamp he turned on when he got home.

The phantom pain from the apparently imagined impact has entirely gone away now, but he still can't shake the feeling that he isn't alone. Well, that feeling has never gone away. What he means is more something like... it feels more tangible right now. Like whatever or whoever it is is closer right now than usual. Part of him feels like he should be frightened, but he still doesn't feel threatened by it.

"Hello?" he tries, calling out the word a couple more times into the quiet apartment as if maybe whatever it is could say anything back to him. "Hello? Is there anyone there?"

***

Blaine falls asleep leaned up against Cooper, his head resting on his older brother's shoulder.

He's mostly asleep when he hears a voice in his ear. It doesn't really sound like Cooper, but it's only the two of them there and it doesn't sound like it's coming from the TV, so it must be him.

He tips his chin up to look up at Cooper, raising an eyebrow. "D'you say something?" he asks in a mumble, his words slightly slurred from the sleep that he's barely pulled himself from.

"No," he replies, sounding a little bit confused. "Go back to sleep."

Blaine nods and does as he is told, closing his eyes again and letting himself drift off back to sleep.

***

A few days pass and everything is okay.

Blaine's bruise becomes visible and starts to fade away, and he is cleared of having a concussion (Cooper does get worried when Blaine starts to act a bit airy and seems a bit only-half-there at times, and takes him to the doctor, who checks him out and declares everything fine).

Lucas seems a bit bitter with Kurt for making a scene at dinner, but he gets over it soon enough.

Kurt still can't quite shake the heightened feeling of someone else being in his presence, but by now in his life he has gotten pretty good at ignoring that.

The weather is nice out that weekend, and Rachel marches into Kurt's apartment and insists that he come with her and go hiking.

"It's like I haven't seen you at all recently," she says when he starts to protest, giving him a pout that tells him in no uncertain terms that saying no was never an option.

"I've just been kind of busy, is all," he replies with a small shrug.

She goes to his kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water and a couple of snacks for him to further emphasize how little choice he has in this. "I get it, I do, you are a newlywed and overcome with love, but Lucas is not respecting the fact that you need some best friend time. It's inconsiderate and rude."

Kurt chuckles softly, shaking his head at her. "It's not like he's holding me here against my will. If you're going to be upset with someone, be upset with me for not making time for you, not him."

"No can do, Kurt," she says, stepping over to him and grabbing his face in both her hands to pull him down so that she can kiss his forehead. "You're my friend and therefore blameless."

He doesn't push the issue any further, knowing that doing so will accomplish nothing. Rachel is nothing if not supportive of him and happy for him, but at the same time he knows that she isn't exactly the biggest fan of Lucas. And that's fine.

She makes him change into more proper hiking attire and takes him out of the apartment and out to a car that she's left parked on the curb (all the while telling him excitedly about how she'd gone about renting the car, being that since they were leaving the city they'd need transportation beyond just the subway system).

The drive further upstate is pleasant. It is exactly what he has been needing recently, an opportunity to just let go a bit and not feel self-conscious. If nothing else, Rachel is good for that; she's confident in herself in a way that is very contagious, and even if she wasn't, she is just self-centered enough that being alone with her means not having to worry too much about what anyone else is thinking of you.

And he and Rachel just get along, get each other in ways that he isn't sure he will ever understand (by all accounts, he should probably hate her, and yet she is undoubtedly his best friend in the world). She turns the music up and sings along and he lets himself sing along with her, something that he hasn't done a whole lot of lately. He feels completely relaxed, and the lingering _something_ in the back of his mind is all but forgotten.

It isn't a short drive, and he isn't really sure how much time has passed when they finally reach a sign for a National Park and the car finally stops. They get out of the car, Rachel excitedly chattering at him as they set off up the trail.

***

Blaine has to admit it, there is something freeing about the lifestyle he is living now. Since there are stretches of time when his schedule is irregular or he just plain doesn't have much going on, he can regularly just take time to enjoy being where he is.

So on days like today where the sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky and the beaches are no doubt full of beautiful people who are similarly unencumbered with busy schedules, he likes to take the car and just drive around. He'll go up the coast sometimes and take in the sight of the ocean, marveling at how big it is and how small he is in comparison. Cooper will laugh at him that evening when he asks what he did that day and he doesn't really have a good answer except "I drove around a bit," but it's just something that he can't really expect his brother to understand.

He just loves it, driving as close as he can to the ocean while still being on a road and taking in the sights. He takes pictures here and there, even though he has probably dozens of similar pictures stored on his phone and none of them are significantly different from the others.

It comes as a complete shock to him when in the middle of his drive the world starts to feel a bit hazy and all of a sudden instead of the Pacific he's looking at what appears to be mountains covered in snow.

He has the presence of mind to pull over quickly before he tries to process what he is seeing. When he focuses he can see what is really before him, the car he's in and the guard rail separating him and the water below. But at the same time, he can see the mountains and the trees and a dirt trail ahead and a petite girl walking in front of him just as vividly as if he was there, seeing it with his own two eyes. He just sits there for a bit staring, appreciating the sight though he has no idea why or how he's seeing it.

"It's so beautiful," he says under his breath to himself.

***

Kurt is sure that he heard someone speak, a definitely male voice, but when he looks around the only person he can see is Rachel. He tells himself that he is just imagining things (again) and keeps up walking after her.

That is, until he hears the voice again. “ _What... What is this? Where is this?”_

It's that same voice again, sounding equal parts awed and confused.

"Hello?" he asks softly, glancing around him again.

Rachel turns around when she hears him speak, raising an eyebrow at him. "What?" she asks.

He pauses for a moment, hears the voice in his head saying _"hello"_ back. Rachel doesn't react to the voice at all; she clearly doesn't hear it. He hesitates for a second before giving her a smile and saying, "I think I dropped something. Stay here, I'll be right back."

***

Blaine has no idea what's going on in his mind. He had just been talking to himself, no part of him had expected to get any sort of answer back. And yet, here he is.

He can hear a voice, can see the girl in front of him, all as if it is his own body doing everything. Whoever it is turns away from the girl and heads back down the trail a bit, he assumes until she's out of earshot.

And then, again, the voice repeats, _"Hello?"_

And all he can say back is, "Um, hi."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I know. I really shouldn't end on a cliffhanger, that is terrible and cruel and I hope you can forgive me. Also, as you probably noticed here, the chapters are pretty choppy between Kurt and Blaine. I promise, as the fic goes on and they interact with each other more, this will be the case way less.


	3. Chapter Three

_“Um, hi.”_

Kurt takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment, momentarily convincing himself that this is it; he finally has well and truly gone insane. There is no other explanation for this. Sure, he has always had an active imagination and he’s never felt alone, but to actually _hear_ a voice inside his head talking back to him?

“You can hear me?” he asks, proud of himself for how little his voice shakes given how very shaken up he himself feels.

 _“Yeah. I guess so.”_ Part of him had been hoping that he had just imagined a response a moment ago, that he would say something else and get no response. But to no avail, there it was, that same voice again giving him an answer that was clearly not just some overheard nearby voice meant for anyone else.

It takes him a bit before he is able to force words out again. “Who are you?”

 _“Who are_ you _?”_ the voice counters, and for a moment the edges of Kurt’s vision get hazy and everything takes on a kind of… the only way he can think of to describe it is shimmery. He gropes around him blindly, his hand finding a rock beside him to sit down on.

“I asked first,” he said, his voice quiet even though (very fortunately) there is no one around them.

 _“Okay, alright. My name is Blaine,”_ the voice answers.

“Blaine?” he repeats.

Part of him feels like this isn’t new information at all. It feels like maybe this is something that he has known in the back of his mind for as long as he can remember, something forgotten and buried with newer, more important information. At the same time, though, he knows it’s not. He’s never even met anyone named Blaine, except maybe just in passing.

 _“Blaine,”_ he confirms. _“Blaine Anderson. Where are… we?”_

“ _I_ am in New York. _You_ are not real,” he says.

Kurt feels something like a harsh poke of a finger in his side, a dull phantom pain like from the other night. _“Weird, because I feel pretty real,”_ the voice says, and Kurt refuses to let himself believe that what he just felt was an actual, real person poking himself.

“No. You’re a figment of my imagination,” he says. “A hallucination. I don’t know.”

 _“I could say the same about you,”_ Blaine says. _“I don’t even know who you are. You’re just… Here. In my head. Probably a daydream, I don’t know.  You said you’re in New York. You’re just some… daydream of mine that I actually made it out to New York. I guess you’re… You’re me.”_

“No. Stop,” he breathes out, running his fingers through his hair. He pauses for a moment, letting out a long breath. “I’m real, you’re… I don’t know what you are. But you are not real, and you’re… I’m… I’m not crazy.”

 _“Nobody said you’re crazy,”_ the voice continues, taking on a more calming, soothing tone. _“You’re not crazy. There’s… There’s something going on here that neither of us understands, but whatever this is, it is very real. Just… Talk to me. We can figure this out.”_

Kurt tries to pay attention to his words but his mind is swimming and it’s starting to feel like nothing is real even though he can feel his arms around himself, holding on so tightly that if he were made of glass he would’ve already broken. He can barely figure out what is going on around him, his vision barely staying on what was in front of him or whatever this other landscape he was imagining unless he focused on it. “What… What is all of this? Why is there an ocean? What does the ocean mean?”

Blaine _laughs_. He hears it, loud and clear, and something about it makes his heart pound impossibly faster (but in a good way, he thinks, which feels like maybe it’s progress). _“It means I’m by the ocean,”_ he says.

“But how am I seeing this? I’ve… I’ve only been to the ocean once, it didn’t look like this, there’s no way… I’m losing…” Kurt trails off after a moment, shaking his head.

 _“You’re seeing it because I’m seeing it, I guess,”_ Blaine answers, and Kurt kind of hates him for how calm he sounds about all of this. Sure, okay, part of this feels good, feels like maybe that sensation in the back of his mind that he’s never truly been alone is more than just hopeful thinking or something, but still…  This wasn’t _normal_. And it wasn’t like he had ever shied away from being somewhere south of normal, but this was different. Normal, healthy people didn’t just hear voices they couldn’t explain.

There’s a bit of silence between them where Kurt tries to calm himself down, before Blaine speaks again.

“You didn’t tell me your name. I… I told you mine. It only seems fair.”

And Kurt can’t find any way to argue against that, even though part of him thinks about what if this is some next-level stalker abilities that have hacked into his mind or something – a thought that he cuts off quickly because he’s not _that_ paranoid, but still, giving personal information to strangers feels wrong even when said stranger appears to be somehow residing in your head. The point is, he figures, Blaine is already firmly there, and there wasn’t too much more harm to be done by telling him his name. “Kurt,” he says softly.

 _“Kurt,”_ Blaine repeats, and it freaks Kurt out a little bit how very much pleased and calm he sounds.

Blaine starts to say something else, but his words disappear behind Rachel’s voice coming to him from a place, gratefully, far from inside his head. “Kurt? Are you okay?” she asks.

He nods quickly, giving her a smile and hoping that his face doesn’t look flushed and there aren’t any frustrated tears on his face or anything. “Yeah, sorry. Let’s keep going,” he said, and after a moment of looking at him skeptically she accepts it. And just like that the other presence in his mind – Blaine. It feels so weird to put a name to it – fades from his attention and he starts to feel human again.

***

Once Kurt gets distracted, Blaine can practically feel a physical wall blocking him off from reaching him, something that feels more concrete (no pun intended) than the apparently thousands of miles between them, stopping him from talking to him any more beyond that point.

But not being able to communicate with him does not mean that he isn’t thinking about him. Hell no. Blaine can hardly focus on anything else for the rest of the day, his mind always wandering back to Kurt and the way he had sounded, and the way he could _feel_ the strong emotions running through him. He found himself sincerely hoping that whatever the deal was with the connection between them, that it wasn’t dampening down what Kurt was feeling when he felt it himself. If the fear evident in Kurt’s voice hadn’t been enough, it was extremely clear by feeling the waves of terror coming across the gap.

To a certain extent, Blaine can totally understand why Kurt was afraid (if he were to be honest, he had forced down some of his own fear and confusion in hopes that doing so might give Kurt a small amount of comfort). This was definitely way out of the ordinary and he knew that hearing voices was basically a universal red flag.

But still… Being able to hear Kurt’s voice made so many things make sense. All of the moments in his life where he felt or saw things he shouldn’t have been able to feel or see… It all adds up now.

Those experiences that he has had and could never explain, he can explain them now as definitively belonging to someone else. A small part of his mind tells himself to not get carried away yet, to stay skeptical about this until he knows more; for all he knows he really was just imagining everything. He grabs his computer when he get home, halfway ready to look up Kurt until he remembers the fact that he has all of two solid pieces of information about him: his first name, and that he lives in New York somewhere. That isn’t going to get him far at all, considering the sheer number of people who no doubt fit that description. He doesn’t even have any clue what Kurt looks like, a fact that feels weird to remember considering he is apparently able to see through his eyes.

But still, it is a start, and it is a lot more than he has ever had before now.

He’s still caught up thinking about Kurt and what had happened that day, replaying every bit of it that he can remember, when Cooper gets home. If his brother can tell that something is up, he doesn’t say anything about it, just pulls Blaine into the kitchen to make dinner with him.

And all through the process of cooking and eating, Blaine debates in his head whether or not he should say anything to Cooper about what happened, about Kurt. He knows that he would listen and believe him, no matter how crazy it sounded or how confused he got, but still… It all still feels too surreal to say anything about just yet, and also it’s… He isn’t sure of a better word to describe the feeling but intimate. There’s something special there, whatever this connection is, and he’s not sure what it means yet but it feels like something he needs to keep close to his heart for now.

But then after they’ve finished up cleaning up dinner and putting everything away, Cooper gets a call from the girl that he’s been seeing and just like that Blaine finds himself alone again.

He wants to talk to Kurt. He paces around the empty apartment, trying to figure out how their conversation had started to that maybe he could figure out what had triggered it and he could do it again. He wonders if Kurt knows anything about it, if it was just chance that had them communicating in a much clearer way than they had apparently been doing for years.

Did it have anything to do with the fact that he hadn’t been thinking about anything when they broke through to each other? Should he try and think about nothing? After all, Kurt had cut him out when his friend came back, so maybe that meant something?

In the end, he isn’t sure how it happens. He can’t even figure out to himself whether or not he made it happen or if it just happened on its own. But somehow he blinks his eyes and then everything gets kind of fuzzy around the edges like it did earlier, and then he must be seeing through Kurt’s eyes again: he appears to be sitting on a couch with another man, the room dim and quiet music playing. The man is speaking softly but Blaine can’t really make any of it out.

“Kurt?” he says quietly.

Kurt startles and Blaine hears him excuse himself to leave the room, saying that his phone had gone off. When he’s presumably out of earshot, he says back, _“What? Blaine?”_

“Yeah. Hi,” he says, staring straight ahead. There is a moment of silence between them, and Blaine uses it to try and figure out a bit more about how this works, trying to switch between what he was really seeing and what he was seeing through Kurt. It’s kind of like when you’re trying to focus on something near versus far away, and switching between the two.

 _“Hi,”_ Kurt says back finally.

“Is… Is this okay? I want to talk to you,” he says softly.

 _“Okay,”_ he says back after a moment. _“Yeah… We can talk.”_

“Great,” Blaine says with a smile. “So… I’ve been thinking a lot about… this. Trying to figure it out.” He pauses for a moment to wait for Kurt to say something, but he doesn’t. If it wasn’t for the fact that he could still see the room Kurt was in and he could feel a wave of displaced anxiety running through him, he almost would have thought that he’d been cut off again. “And I don’t have any answers, and I’m sure you don’t either…?”

 _“No,”_ Kurt answers softly.

“And that’s okay. We can figure this out. I mean, there’s got to be a logic to it. And hey, it seems like we’re learning about it already! I’m figuring out how to, well, look at what I’m seeing here and what I’m seeing there,” he says with a small smile. “That’s a nice place you’re in, by the way. Is that your home?”

 _“Yeah,”_ Kurt answers, then adds a moment later, _“My husband’s, actually. But I live here, obviously, so, yes.”_

Blaine is caught off guard by that information, nodding slowly to himself. The weirdest part is the fact that he’s thrown off more by the idea that Kurt is married than by the fact that he’s gay; he knows better than to assume that kind of thing, but still, well, he _had_ assumed. “Oh. You’re married,” he said. “That’s… Right. You’ve got a name, you’ve got a life, why can’t you be married?”

 _“Yeah, it’s… It’s good,”_ he says back and chuckles softly _. “So, um… I guess I should ask you a bit about yourself, since I’ve told you about me.”_

Kurt’s voice is still quiet and unsure and Blaine can tell that he is still a bit afraid, but he is willing to work with it. It seems like progress, how calm his voice sounds now, so that’s something. “So, my name is Blaine,” he said. “As you know. And, ah, I live in Los Angeles, with my brother. So that’s… Something. Don’t take that the wrong way. I love him. I do. And, ah… Oh. He likes to set me up on dates, but none of them have really worked out, so… Yeah. I’m single.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything for a bit again. Eventually, he says, _“You’re a real person.”_

“Thank you,” Blaine replies before thinking, chuckling softly. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He can hear Kurt laugh softly, and that makes the grin on his face bigger. _“It’s just… I was having a hard time believing that. You’re… You’re an actual person living a real life.”_

“And so are you, and somehow… Here we are. Apart, together,” he says.

 _“That’s kind of beautiful, in a weird way,”_ Kurt says softly.

“Mhm. Should’ve been a poet,” he said with a laugh. He brings his hand up to run his fingers through his hair, brushing up against the bruise still there on the side of his face and wincing lightly.

 _“Oh!”_ Kurt says, his voice having more energy in it than there has been since they first spoke and he had his initial panic. “ _That… The other night. Was that you? You got hit… Like, really hard?”_

“Yeah,” Blaine says with a soft laugh. “With a ladder, at rehearsal. Did you feel that? God, I’m sorry.”

 _“It’s… It’s okay,”_ he says, chuckling softly. _“I mean… I was at this fancy dinner and I kind of absolutely embarrassed by husband, but… At least now I know what that was.”_

“Ah. Well, that’s good, then,” Blaine says with a soft chuckle.

Kurt pauses for a moment, and Blaine can see that he’s looked back towards the door where he had come from. _“Hey, listen… I should probably go, okay? I told him I’m on the phone, I should probably…”_

He trails off and Blaine just nods to himself. “No, go, it’s fine. We can… We can talk later, I guess? Provided this thing keeps working?”

 _“Ideally,”_ Kurt said, and Blaine can’t help but notice that he does finally sound relaxed and happy.

“Great. Tomorrow, maybe,” he says.

 _“Maybe. We’ll see,”_ Kurt says back before making his way out of the room. As the door clicks shut, Blaine is alone in his living room again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, just a quick question for anyone interested in this story: longer chapters less frequently or shorter chapters more frequently? Right now I'm in a good spot for writing so I should be able to update fairly frequently from here on regardless, but I just kind of want to know if anybody would have a preference. Short chapters would be about the length of this one, longer would be about double or more.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so based on the feedback I got, it looks like shorter chapters is the way to go. Hope that's okay!

Sometimes Kurt has to remind himself of how good he has it. It’s not that he isn’t happy and he doesn’t enjoy what he has in life, it’s more like… He takes it for granted. That’s what it is. He lives a comfortable life and he has a good job and a good husband and a beautiful apartment and occasionally they talk about getting a cat because they agreed they’re too young for kids yet. By all accounts it is a good life, something that ten years ago he never would have dreamed of having. And yet, sometimes, he finds himself wishing for something _more_ that he can’t quite put his finger on.

But then there are moments like this one, and he reminds himself that this? This is good. This is damn near perfect and it’s not going to get better than this.

He’s lying on the couch with his head in Lucas’s lap, eyes closed and he keeps almost drifting off but he doesn’t let himself because there’s something about this moment that he wants to hold onto. Lucas had been able to come home early today and he had let Kurt force him into the kitchen even though he always claims that he’s useless at cooking. And now they were curled up on the couch and there was some documentary on that Lucas had been wanting to watch. Kurt isn’t really paying attention but he’s happy, Lucas’s fingers running through his hair further relaxing him.

Apparently the documentary ends and Lucas shifts, looking down at him. “Hey,” he says softly, chuckling.

Kurt blinks a couple of times, looking up at him with a small smile. “Hi,” he says back.

“Tired?” Lucas asks him, smiling at him and continuing to gently play with his hair.

(This is how he knows he’s maturing: just a few years ago he never would’ve let anybody else touch his hair, but now this is one of his favorite things.)

“No,” he answers and shakes his head.

“No?” Lucas asks, chuckling softly and lightly nudging him to sit up.

Kurt does, sitting up slightly so that his side his pressed up against his husband’s. “No,” he repeats.

“Really?” Lucas says with a laugh before pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “Because you seem pretty tired.”

“No, I’m wide awake,” Kurt says with a soft chuckle, stifling a yawn.

“If you say so,” he says. “Maybe it’s just an aftereffect since you had one of your episodes the other day.”

Kurt sobers at that, nodding slowly and getting to his feet. It isn’t fun anymore, and even though now he has an explanation for it he can’t make himself say what that explanation is. “C’mon,” he says softly, reaching out and taking Lucas’s hands in his own. “Let’s go to bed, okay?”

“Okay,” Lucas replies with a small nod, knowing enough to look a bit sheepish at the fact that he’d clearly made a mistake just then.

Kurt leads him back to their bedroom and they go through their routines of getting ready for bed together, dressing down and brushing their teeth.

When they settle down underneath the blankets, Lucas looks at him with a small smile and kisses him slowly. “But… If you’re not tired, how about we…?” he trails off but doesn’t need to say anything else, his hand running down Kurt’s side to his hips saying enough.

Kurt laughs softly and leans up to kiss Lucas, no more words needed. Lucas makes love to him and afterwards he falls asleep curled up in his arms and everything feels perfect.

When he wakes up in the morning alone with Lucas already gone off to work, he stays in bed for a bit longer even though he knows that if Lucas were here he’d playfully chide him for wasting the day away.

* * *

Now that Blaine knows what is going on in his head, he has to admit it: he kind of absolutely loves it.

Never feeling alone has always been a source of comfort for him, but now having Kurt there to talk to is a step beyond that and it’s amazing. He had been a bit worried for a bit; they hadn’t spoken at all since their conversation even though they had talked about speaking the next day. And he knew that it wasn’t like Kurt had nothing going on in his life – he wasn’t sure what exactly Kurt did, but he was sure that he had a job or something, because, well, he is a real person. But still, a full day of radio silence felt like a bad sign.

But then he woke up the next morning and he made himself breakfast and stepped out onto the patio and sat down only to be greeted by that distinctive voice.

_“Are you there?”_

Blaine chuckles softly to himself at the way he jumps in surprise at the sudden disturbance to the silence. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said softly. “Good morning.”

 _“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,”_ he says back, chuckling.

He has to pause for a moment so that he doesn’t say something stupid – his kneejerk reaction is to say something about how Kurt is in the future – and to remind himself that if Kurt is in New York and he is in California, of course there is going to be a time difference. “Well, it’s morning for me still,” he says instead with a soft laugh.

Blaine pauses for a moment and looks at what Kurt’s seeing, blinking to himself in surprise when he seems that Kurt is drawing in a sketchbook.

 _“But you slept in,”_ comes Kurt’s teasing voice, his hand pausing as he chuckles softly at his own words.

“Maybe a bit. It’s not even that late,” Blaine chuckled, shaking his head. “Anyways, what are you doing there?”

 _“Oh, um, this?”_ Kurt asks, looking down at the paper. _“I kind of forgot that you’d see that. I work for a designer, I’m just… They’re just some sketches.”_ He sounds a little bit embarrassed and Blaine can’t help but find that adorable.

“Just some sketches,” Blaine echoes, rolling his eyes. “That’s not _just_ anything.”

 _“It’s work,”_ Kurt says. _“So it is.”_

“Okay, fine, whatever. All I’m saying is, it looks really good,” he says.

 _“Well, thank you, then,”_ Kurt says softly, going back to drawing.

Blaine stays silent for a moment, just watching Kurt’s pencil as it moves smoothly over the paper. “I remember this,” he says after a bit. “I remember seeing you do this before.”

_“Oh?”_

“Yeah. I remember. You were… You couldn’t get it right or something, and it was bothering you,” he says, thinking back to the moment, one of many that only adds up in hindsight.

 _“Sounds about right,”_ Kurt replies with a soft laugh. _“That’s my life, essentially.”_

“Except for how you’re incredibly talented and what you’re drawing looks pretty perfect,” he says. “Has it happened to you?”

 _“Has what ever happened to me?”_ Kurt asks, his voice sounded slightly distracted because of his focus on what he’s doing with his hands.

“Anything like, you know, seeing anything I’m doing?”

 _“Oh,”_ he says, pausing for a moment and thinking about it. _“Yeah, a few times, I guess,” he said with a small shrug._

“Yeah?”

 _“I remember… This one time I was in high school, sophomore or junior year, maybe, and I guess you were… I guess you went to the beach or something,”_ he says. _“I just remember that it… It felt so real. Like I was actually there.”_

“That must’ve been when my brother moved out here. He lived here for a while before I did,” he says, smiling slightly as he thinks about it. “That was the first time I saw the ocean. Is that lame?”

 _“No,”_ Kurt says with a soft laugh. _“I hadn’t either at that point. So… Where did you live before you came to California?”_

“Ohio,” he replies. “A state which, if you can help it, you should never go to.”

 _“Ohio? Seriously?”_ he asks, his voice sounding amused and surprised enough that Blaine wonders for a second if he’s missing something.

“Yeah, why?” he asks.

 _“I’m from Ohio, too,”_ Kurt says with a chuckle.

“Huh,” Blaine says, nodding slowly to himself. He wonders for a second if maybe their proximity had anything to do with their connection; it’s a stretch and he knows it, but it still feels like maybe just maybe it means something. “Small world.”

 _“But hey, neither of us is in that hellhole anymore,”_ he says lightly.

“True,” he replies with a small smile, sighing and closing his eyes for a moment. “I think… I think I might remember maybe… Your first night in New York, or something.”

 _“Oh. That… That must not have been fun,”_ he says.

“It was… Weird,” he says. He remembers how alone and scared he felt, how tiny he felt as he saw flashes of a dark and empty unfamiliar room. Only hindsight and thinking about the timing of it makes it make sense now.

Kurt doesn’t say anything for a moment, struggling with what he is about to say. _“Blaine, I… It didn’t make any sense then, but I always felt like there was someone there with me. Just a feeling. I felt it more strongly at times like that… when I was feeling lost, or sad… It helped. Did you ever feel that way?”_

“You tell me,” Blaine says back simply.

 _“Right,”_ Kurt says, letting out a soft sigh. _“Your… Your freshman year of high school, that wasn’t a good time for you, was it?”_

“Not at all,” Blaine says. “That was… Well, that was when I came out. And… everything after.”

 _“Ah,”_ he says in understanding. There is a moment of silence where they both recognize that there is a more to the story, something below the surface that feels like it shouldn’t be talked about just yet. _“But hey, it got better.”_

Blaine smiles softly at that, chuckling. “Yeah, I guess it did indeed,” he says. “And hey. You helped me through that.”

 _“I’m glad,”_ he says, and Blaine loves how he’s starting to figure out from the way his voice sounds when he’s smiling.

“There’s a lot of things I remember, now that I’m thinking about it,” he says softly. “They’re all… Probably pretty personal.”

 _“Yeah… Knowing what I experienced from your life, I can only imagine what you remember from mine,”_ Kurt says, his voice laced with a somewhat nervous laugh.

“Like when you were a kid…” he trails off, having a feeling he can just about guess what the deep, profound sadness that had occurred then was about.

 _“Ah. Yeah,”_ he says softly, his voice sounding a bit sad and delicate for a moment and Blaine wants nothing more to wrap Kurt up in a hug and take back what he just said that clearly reopened an old wound. _“My mom.”_

“Your mom,” he echoes softly, nodding slightly to himself.

_“It’s… It was hard. But it was good, she was… She wasn’t doing too good for a while before, so…”_

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Blaine says quietly. He knows that it’s an old hurt and he knows that anything he says Kurt has probably heard before, especially since it was so long ago and Kurt has clearly long ago managed to cope with the loss, but he still feels like he needs to say something anyways.

 _“That’s true,”_ Kurt says softly, sighing. _“I never felt as alone as I did then.”_

“But you weren’t,” he says back.

There’s a moment of silence between them that feels heavy with meaning but neither one of them is willing to touch. Eventually Blaine speaks again, chuckling softly as something occurs to him. “Hey. Go stand in front of a mirror,” he says.

 _“What?”_ Kurt asks with a soft laugh.

“You heard me. Go stand in front of a mirror,” he says again. “I have no idea what you look like, besides your hands. And don’t get me wrong, you have perfectly nice hands, but…”

Kurt does get to his feet, setting down the sketchbook and taking a few steps out of his living room before he stops again. _“I can’t.”_

“Why not?” he asks.

 _“This is ridiculous. I’m scared,”_ Kurt replies with a soft, anxious chuckle.

“What could you be nervous about?”

 _“Shut up, you’re scared, too. I’m really not much to look at,”_ he says.

“I doubt that,” Blaine says with a smile. “I bet you’re perfectly handsome. You’ve got yourself a husband, he clearly must find you attractive.”

 _“I guess…”_ he says slowly, but he still doesn’t make any further moves.

“Want me to do it first?” he asks with a small smile.

 _“Would you?”_ Kurt asks.

“Sure,” Blaine replies as he gets to his feet, walking back inside and going to his bathroom where there’s a large mirror. He stops for a bit as he reaches the mirror, closing his eyes for a moment as he stands in front of it. He suddenly understands how nervous Kurt was; what if he wasn’t what Kurt was expecting? And he basically just rolled out of bed and got up this morning, his hair is probably a mess, not to mention the fact that he’s still in his pajamas…

“So? Are you going to show me?” Kurt asks after a moment, sounding hopeful in a way that gives Blaine a bit of confidence.

He lets out a long breath and moves his hands over his hair in a halfhearted attempt to somewhat control it before he opens his eyes, deciding that he has nothing to lose at this point. He opens them and takes in the sight of himself, noting his wild hair and how he looks kind of tired and all he can do is hope that he’s being more critical of himself than Kurt is.

Kurt doesn’t say anything for a bit, and Blaine starts to get a bit nervous.

 _“You’re very handsome,”_ he finally says, and Blaine lets out a soft breath.

“Handsome, huh?” he says with a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously.

 _“No,”_ Kurt says, taking it back for a moment before saying, _“I mean… yeah. You’ve got such a nice face.”_

“Thank you,” Blaine says softly. “I do my best, I guess.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything until Blaine turns around to stop facing the mirror. _“Hey!”_

“It’s your turn,” Blaine said. “Come on.”

 _“Okay… Okay, fine,”_ Kurt says. He covers his eyes with his hands as he goes to stand in front of the mirror, taking in a few deep breaths as he mentally prepares himself to turn around.

Eventually he lets his hands drop, and Blaine takes in a sharp breath at the sight of him. Blaine isn’t sure what he expected. He knows that Kurt has beautiful hands and a beautiful voice and it really shouldn’t be a surprise that the rest of him is beautiful, too, but… He can’t find words for a moment, glad that he isn’t facing the mirror then so Kurt can’t see his face which probably looks ridiculous right now.

“I told you. You’re definitely something to look at. You should be a model,” he says eventually.

 _“Oh, shut up,”_ Kurt says, shaking his head. “You don’t need to flatter me.”

“I’m not flattering, I mean it,” he says, chuckling as he looks at him.

 _“Hey. Turn back around,”_ Kurt requests softly, and he does.

And just like that it’s almost like they’re standing face to face, looking at each other a bit shyly. There are smiles on both of their faces, looking at each other and kind of chuckling to themselves with a mixture of nerves and happiness.

“Hi.”

Kurt laughs and smiles at him wider. _“Hi.”_

“It’s nice to actually finally meet you face to face.”


End file.
